


Close your eyes

by servantofclio



Series: Jocelyn Hawke [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, Spider guts, also Merrill and AVeline, only flirting, some brief nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: Hawke demands a bath while trekking back from the Wounded Coast. Varric declines to peek. She kind of wishes he would.





	Close your eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ponaco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponaco/gifts), [Selkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/gifts).



> Two friends happened to give me exactly the same prompt, and here it is.

“Of course it had to be giant spiders again,” Varric said with a sigh.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Hawke returned. “You weren’t the one getting up close and personal with them.”

“Believe me, I got as close as I needed to be, Hawke.”

“It’s true, though,” Merrill put in. “When Hawke goes in to stab them, she gets all covered in guts and ichor.”

“See? Merrill knows I’m right.”

They trudged down a path along the Wounded Coast, the sea crashing against the cliff to their right and the craggy highlands of the coastlands to their left. Aveline marched in front, ignoring the bickering of the rest of them. She was thoroughly splashed in spider gore herself, though her shield had taken the worst of it. Hawke, without any protection, was soaked head to toe in things she preferred not to think about. Merrill and Varric still had webbing in their hair and a few artful splashes of blood and ichor, but nothing like Hawke. She felt sticky all over, and her armor creaked.

“I wasn’t saying anything about who got the most dirty,” Varric said.

“Which was undoubtedly me,” Hawke said.

“They’re not any more fun from a distance.”

“Oh really?” Hawke turned around and walked down the path backwards so she could glare at Varric while she did. “You don’t think it’s maybe a little easier to stand back there shooting away with Bianca than it is to get right up next to them? They’ve got pinchy mandible things, Varric.” She splayed out her hands on either side of her face to demonstrate, wiggling her fingers ominously. “And all those legs. And chitin.”

“I’m fully aware of the chitin, Hawke.”

“I have to hit them just so to get the dagger in, Varric.”

“Yeah, I have to aim just so, too, Hawke,” Varric said, staring back at her with raised eyebrows.

“Be careful, Hawke,” Merrill said.

“I’m always careful,” she said, just as a stone turned under her heel and she staggered on the narrow, sloping path, her arms flailing. “I’m fine!’ she said, regaining her balance. She held her arms out on either side of herself, palms out. “Everything’s under control.”

“Everything would be if you’d walk facing forward like a normal person,” Aveline said, long-suffering.

Hawke walked backward a few more paces just to prove she could do it before turning around. Behind her, Merrill and Varric snickered.

Hawke was being ridiculous. She knew that. She couldn’t even remember why, exactly. Except for the obvious utterly disgusting stuff she was coated in, making her leathers stiff and chafe-y and smelling none too pleasant, either, and — oh, right! Something about Varric’s incessant complaining. Always groaning about being out and about and taken on adventures, like he wouldn’t be bored if she didn’t drag him out of the Hanged Man once in a while.

They reached the end of the slope. Hawke’s eye drifted toward the bit of sandy shore below, where a shallow inlet curled inward, protected from the might of the sea beyond. “I need a bath,” she said.

“You can get one back in Kirkwall,” Aveline said.

“It’ll take us hours to hike back. This stuff is soaking into my pores, Aveline. It could poison me, and then where would you be?”

“Without a lot of complications, I’m thinking,” Aveline said.

But she stopped as Hawke turned off on the even narrower path that led down to the shore, and the others trailed along as well.

“A dip might be nice,” Merrill said.

“In cold salt water?” Varric said with disgust.

“Some of us are hardy folk, used to roughing it,” Hawke said, already unbuckling her armor. “Not delicate dwarven flowers.”

“I’ll hold out for a nice hot bath in my quarters, thanks.”

That did sound nice, Hawke had to admit, but she wasn’t going to do so out loud. “I’ll just have a second bath later.”

“You do remember Varric’s standing right here,” Aveline said as Hawke started dropping pieces of armor.

“Close your eyes, Varric!” Hawke proclaimed dramatically. “Or avert them, whatever. Maker knows you don’t want to be exposed to any of this female flesh! You might go mad with lust!” With a flourish, she peeled off and dropped her shirt and drawers and made for the water.

Behind her, Varric was laughing. Aveline’s sigh could probably be heard all the way in Kirkwall. Merrill was also stripping down. Hawke ran in, arms outstretched.

Hell. The water _was_ cold. It hit her skin like a shock, but now there was nothing for it but to charge all the way in, until she was neck-deep and shivering. She whirled around and peered back toward the shore. She couldn’t tell if Varric actually had his eyes closed. The idea was vaguely disappointing.

Hawke took in a mouthful of air and ducked under the water, letting the currents swirl through her hair and bubbles stream out of her nose while she contemplated that. Somehow she’d rather he peeked. Not that she was vain, but it would be nice to think he had some appreciation for her feminine assets. She had a nice enough body, if she did say so herself.

She surfaced and found Merrill bobbing alongside her. The two of them hastily washed off the spider guts as best they could, scrubbing each other’s backs. The salt drying on their skin, well, that they’d just have to live with.

Hawke sloshed out of the water and scrambled back to the rocks where she’d dropped her clothes and armor, and paused.

“You know,” she said to Varric, who certainly had his eyes closed now, if he hadn’t earlier, “the problem with this is that now I have to put my filthy clothes back on. And I’m wet.”

“Yeah,” Varric said. “Who could have foreseen the flaw in this plan?”

She swatted him on the arm. Varric flinched. “Hey!”

“I could do with some more sympathy here,” she told him. Sighing, she reached for her clothes.

“Oh, sure, excuse me,” he said. “I’ve overwhelmed with sympathy for your terrible and not at all predictable plight.”

She aimed another swipe at him. This time he dodged. His eyelids might have twitched a little. Hawke gasped in mock horror. “Varric, are you peeking?”

“Impossible,” he said. “I’m not overcome with lust yet.”

Hawke stuck her tongue out at him. “How could you resist all this?” she asked, striking a pose.

She was pretty sure his eyelids did crack open that time. But all he said was, “I’ll pass on the spider guts, thanks.”

“Fine,” she said, sighing dramatically, and started dressing. “You’ll succumb to my charms in time, I know it.”

“Yeah,” Varric said, softer. “I might, at that.”

Hawke almost didn’t hear him, as Merrill came splashing and shivering out of the water just then. By the time they were dressed and on their way again, she’d almost forgotten it.

She’d remember it later, off and on over the years.


End file.
